Ron Johnson: Hillary Clinton Planned To Get Emotional To Evade Questions  —  “I think she just decided before she was going to describe emotionally the four dead Americans, the heroes, and use that as her trump card,” the senator tells BuzzFeed.  —  U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pounds …

Pentagon Is Set to Lift Combat Ban for Women  —  WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is lifting the military's official ban on women in combat, which will open up hundreds of thousands of additional front-line jobs to them, senior defense officials said Wednesday.

Virginia State Senate Moves Ahead on Electoral College-Rigging Bill  —  Congressional clerks open certificate envelopes from different states during a joint session of the 113th Congress to count the Electoral College votes January 4, 2013 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Everything You Think You Know About Health Care Spending Is Wrong  —  This is the chart that I think ought to dominate the conversation about public-sector health care spending in the United States, and yet it is curiously ignored.  The data show government health care spending per capita in the United States and Canada.

Boehner: Obama's goal is to ‘annihilate’ the Republican Party  —  Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he believes the primary goal of President Obama's second term is to “annihilate the Republican Party.”  —  “Given what we heard yesterday about the president's vision for his second term …

House votes to suspend debt limit  —  A measure to suspend the nation's legal limit on borrowing for nearly four months cleared a key vote in the House Wednesday, as Republicans broadly endorsed a new tactic that would temporarily remove the threat of a potentially calamitous government default …

So what if abortion ends life?  —  I believe that life starts at conception.  And it's never stopped me from being pro-choice  —  Of all the diabolically clever moves the anti-choice lobby has ever pulled, surely one of the greatest has been its consistent co-opting of the word “life.”  Life!

UNIONS SUFFER SHARP DECLINE IN MEMBERSHIP … WASHINGTON (AP) — Union membership plummeted last year to the lowest level since the 1930s as cash-strapped state and local governments shed workers and unions had difficulty organizing new members in the private sector despite signs of an improving economy.

TARP Czar to Take Shot in Politics  —  Neel Kashkari, who oversaw the U.S. Treasury's much-maligned Troubled Asset Relief Program during the financial crisis, said he is leaving Pacific Investment Management Co. to consider running for public office in Democrat-heavy California as a Republican.

How Obama Can Have a Great Second Term  —  The Presidential Inauguration is a strange, monarchial event that makes everybody temporarily mistake the president for the government.  Now that our president has laid out his vision, and been regaled by dancing and feasts and song, the question remains, will he accomplish anything?

Lanny Breuer, Justice Department criminal division chief, is stepping down  —  Sean Gardner/GETTY IMAGES - The Justice Department's Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division Lanny A. Breuer addresses the media while announcing new criminal charges against oil company BP on Nov. 15.

Americans Back Obama's Proposals to Address Gun Violence  —  Criminal background checks on gun sales garner highest level of support  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Given the chance to vote “for” or “against” each of nine key proposals included in President Barack Obama's plan to reduce gun violence, Americans back all nine.